The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Flight of the Prodigal

Previously: "The Webb of Friendship" 

You're saved from who knows what awful fate by a buzz from Evie's cell phone. It's her mom, telling her to come home. Andrew spits and cusses, but acquiesces when the others insist on sending home someone who looks like their classmate. You, of course, are volunteered, and Andrew even wants to force you to change into Evie's clothes in front of him and his friends, but Elijah and even Aaron force him to back down. Still, you're in tears as you run out of Aaron's trailer.

You've recovered somewhat when you reach Evie's house, though her mom notices your semi-hysterical mood. You put her off with a stammered lie about having had a bad fight with some of your friends, and she lets you retreat to a bathroom to wash up. You're in slightly better shape when you emerge to silently nibble at your dinner, but you have to put Evie's mom off again with the excuse that you don't really want to talk about the trouble.

There's no point in trying to make another body swap to escape those assholes. They'd soon figure out where to find you. And even if they didn't, whoever you victimized would. It's one of the things that came in a flash as you were driving home: a memory of Evie Cummings looking at herself in a bathroom mirror and tentatively putting a hand to her brow to wrench at her face as arcane syllables of power bubbled on her lips. Then everything went dark. And when next she clambered upright to study her reflection, her lips curls into a triumphant smirk.

The memory of how to take masks off: you left the it in her mask when last you removed it. So all Andrew had to do was concentrate, and he could remember how to do the same thing. That is how he got out of her mask, so he could prove to his friends who he really was. Other memories, of a wondering Evie studying her naked body while not only Elijah and Aaron but Andrew grinned at her, tell you that his friends also took turns trying the mask on before they called you out for that ambush.

So, bottom-line, your days of body-swapping are over. Worse, Andrew and his friends now have that crazy book—a thought that makes you shudder all over.

There isn't any place to hide from them, but after this afternoon there's no way in hell you're going to continue on with Evie's life. No, it's best to face them as Dane Matthias, even with Dane's cousin and Gary Chen being mad at him. Or maybe you should go back further and get yourself back into Gordon's mask. Those little sophomore pricks would have a lot harder time bullying you if you had Gordon's body!

Or maybe you should just undo everything you've gotten into. Give Dane his life back, give Gordon his life back, resume your own. With luck, Gordon and Dane will just be so confused that they won't link you to the weirdness. Even if they do, you feel you'd have a much less stressful time of it if you had to deal with everyone from behind your own face and not another's.

So after dinner you get permission to run into town for some quick errands. The first of those takes you to a Dollar General, where you buy the cheapest and flimsiest t-shirt and pair of shorts you can. Then, after changing into them and out of Evie's mask in her car, you drive out to Dane's trailer park.

* * * * *

"Yeah?" Dane Matthias asks from behind the screen door. His brow is deeply furrowed and his eyes are pools of fear and worry.

He looks hunted. You shouldn't blame him. But it makes you very tired to have to reason with the disguised Evie Cummings when you're here to rescue her from a nightmare.

But it won't help for you to yell or to act like a dickweed. So you put on your cheeriest smile and pretend like you're Dane's best friend. "Hey man!" you exclaim. "How you doin'? I should'a texted you or something first, but I came over to see if you wanted to hang out or something."

Dane looks very doubtful, and glances over his shoulder into the house.

"I shouldn't," he says. "Things are kind of, um, busy here."

"Busy with what? Your mom home?"

He hesitates, then shakes his head.

"Then if you can't come out, you know, to go looking for girls or a party, at least come sit out on the roof of the car with me. I'm bored, man!"

"I can't."

"You got better plans?" You spread your arms in an invitation.

Dane stares at you, and his expression turns very haggard. Then with a pained sigh, he sags and pushes open the door.

"That's it," you tell him. "You just gotta hang loose. What happened the most relaxed guy at school?"

It takes Dane a moment to realize you're talking about him. Before he can reply, though, you've stepped behind him. That moment of hesitation was all that you needed.

You grasp him from behind and grab his forehead with one hand. He freezes in your embrace, which gives you time to rip his face away from his skull. The mask comes off in your hand, and Dane's clothes slip a little as Evie's small, slender frame apparates within them. You haul her up into your arms and carry her out to her car. There you strip her and pile her clothes onto her naked body before scrambling back to Dane's trailer. Instead of going inside, though, you hide in the small yard behind it, and it's there that you change into Dane's trademark flannel pajama bottoms and smelly t-shirt. You put the mask to your face.

* * * * *

After you wake, you climb into Dane's trailer through an open window in the back, just in case Evie's car is still parked out front. You find yourself in what you take to be his mom's bedroom, and it's as dirty and disheveled as you remember his room being, with dirty dishes and old magazines piled up atop mounds of funky-smelling clothes.

Someone's snoring in the living room when you emerge, and your heart sinks when you find Dane's rat-faced cousin—what was his name?—sacked out on the broken-backed sofa. No wonder Evie was acting so frightened. You need to get out of here before he wakes.

But after softly searching everywhere, you can find neither car keys nor a cell phone. You're on the point of slipping on some shoes and making a hike of it to a bus stop or something when Dane's cousin stirs, sits up, and smacks his mouth.

He rubs his eye and yawns. "You packed yet, man?" he asks.

"Packed?" you echo.

"Yeah, packed," he says, glaring up at you. "Got your shit together?"

"Um ..."

"Oh, Jesus!" Dane's cousin heaves himself to his feet and swaggers over. Too late you duck, and he smacks you hard on the side of the head. "The fuck have you been doing?" He grabs you by the back of your shirt and hustles you down the hall to Dane's room.

"Christ, you didn't even get started!" he snarls. "Hurry it up!" He shoves you hard. "I told Ila we'd be back by nine."

That's when you notice the suitcase just inside the door. "Um, is there anything I should specially take?" Your head spins, and your heart bobs with fear.

"Anything you don't want to leave behind," he retorts. "Gonna give you five minutes, Dane, and after that you're shit outta luck."

And so, not having any idea what's going on, you shove every scrap of Dane's clothing you can find into the suitcase. "Got y'r toothbrush?" you're asked when you appear with your bag, and you duck your head as you run into the bathroom. Dane's cousin looks thoroughly disgusted with you—but too tired to hit you again—by the time you leave.

He takes you back to his place (you assume), where he and a skanky woman with tattoos and some missing teeth ignore you for the rest of the evening. You ask if you can go out for a bit—a chance to get away, maybe find the real Dane at Gordon's place—but that only gets you another slap and a sneering, "You fucking with me?" Your spirits are very low when you bed down for the night in the living room. At least, you tell yourself, I can go find Dane at school tomorrow and we can straighten this out.

But the next morning Dane's cousin doesn't drive you to school. No, he drives you to the municipal airport and puts you on a turbo prop with a one-way ticket. When your journey is over, you are in Oregon, and a representative from the Fort Putnam Military Academy is at the airport to pick you up.

* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *

"Carmona!" Curt Bossard shouts as he tosses the package into your dorm-mate's outstretched hands. "Better be cookies! Tompkins!" He tosses out another package to its recipient. "Better be cookies. Matthias! That better be a cake," the prefect growls as you catch the heavy box.

Tess Miller titters. "Marijuana brownies," she says.

"Whaddaya think this is, nineteen seventy five?" Bossard rocks back on his heels to watch as you pull at the brown paper the box is wrapped in. Given that it's from Dane's mom, it just might be something with weed in it.

Thanksgiving is coming in a rush, and care packages are now flowing into Fort Putnam. Still, it's a surprise to get something from Saratoga Falls. In the six weeks since Dane's cousin hustled you out here, this is the first physical item you've received.

But your jaw drops and your hair crawls over your scalp when you rip back the tape and pull back the box flaps. It's not food that Marianne Matthias has sent you. It's a book.

More than that, it's a book bound in red leather. When, in a semi-trance, you lift open the front cover, a row of hand-drawn faces grin and wink at you from the title page. They change expressions, aspects, and genders as you stare at them.

Next: "Six Weeks" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"